On Sunday, Croats went to the polls in a snap election, returning the ruling nationalist party HDZ as the biggest party, but changing nothing. Just 53% of all Croats voted: the likely outcome is a coalition of the same old “centrist” parties – nationalists and social democrats. On the face of it, the country faces the same old problems. Unemployment at 16%, rising to 40% among the young; debt at 90% of GDP; the coast dependent on tourism, the interior sending migrant workers to Germany and Austria by the coach load.
What’s new is the return of nationalism. By 2013, Croatia’s conservative nationalist politicians had made enough liberal noises to convince Brussels they could meet the basic criteria for EU membership. Since then, they’ve been sucked into the surge of nationalist rivalry that’s gripped the Balkans. Just across the mountains lies Republika Srpska – the Serb enclave created in the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Dayton Agreement in 1995, after a bitter civil war. Republika Srpska’s leaders are threatening to hold a referendum on independence, which would blow up the deal that has brought peace to the region for 20 years. [...]
If the EU is to live up to the hope and trust placed in it by young people in the Balkans, it needs to start by being firm with the incoming Croatian government. All cultural nods and winks towards the fascist regime in the second world war must go. Ultimately, the EU must be prepared – as it has threatened with Poland and Hungary but not done – to trigger the Article 7 processes that can see member countries warned over inadequate rule of law, and ultimately be suspended from membership, or see their voting rights curtailed.
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